Fewer tertiary-educated Millennials in South Africa are employed compared to their counterparts from the previous generation, according to the Education and Labour Market statistics for 2018, released by StatsSA on 25 February 2020.
Millennials were the most highly educated group of the three, with more Millennial females holding tertiary qualifications. The Born-Free generation was too young to compare statistics on tertiary education and employment.“Unlike Generation X individuals, Millennials in their 20s and 30s came of age during the bad economic conditions in South Africa, and consequently full and productive employment remained elusive for many youths in this generation.
According to Nicola Branson, a senior researcher in the Southern African Labour Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, the figures could also be attributed to the types of tertiary qualifications held by unemployed Millennials. The government has shifted its focus towards the TVET sector. President Cyril Ramaphosa in his recent State of the Nation Address pledged to invest in the TVET sector by building nine new TVET colleges and introducing a three-stream curriculum model in schools to incorporate more vocational and technical education.
It seems there is a lot of criticism of the millennial attitude to work and formal structures, does this perhaps influence the employment stats?